Isaac remnants dumping heavy rain across Missouri, Illinois

Reuters: The remnants of Hurricane Isaac were grinding slowing northward early on Saturday with its center now deep into Missouri and the heavy rain stretching for hundreds of miles east into Illinois amid reports of tornadoes and high winds, meteorologists said.

Reuters: Drought-stricken areas of Missouri and Illinois were easily absorbing the rain Friday and the system was expected to soak the region deep into Sunday, said Jayson Gosselin, meteorologist with the National Weather Service's St. Louis-area office.

"We have gotten pretty widespread light to moderate rain that has piled up," Gosselin said. "The rain is certainly going to help our drought situation up here."

Most places in the area were reporting 1 to 3 inches of rain by late on Friday and were expected to see up to 5 inches of rain through Sunday, though some might see "upwards of 5, 6, 7 inches," Gosselin said. A wide swath of central Illinois from west to east was expected to receive similar amounts of rain as the system slowly passes through the state, the weather service said.

The weather service received reports of two tornadoes in Illinois and one in Missouri on Friday that caused what looked like fairly minor damage, Gosselin said. Two possible storm tracks will probably be surveyed on Saturday, he said.

The rain has been fairly consistent, and due to drought conditions and low river levels there have not been any reports of flash flooding or river flooding so far in the area, he said….

Isaac on August 30, 2012

Lessons from the 2011 flood on the Missouri River

Caroline Pufault in St. Louis Today: This week citizens, scientists and public officials met in St. Louis to consider how to respond to last year's "unnatural flooding" along the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers. The event was hosted by the Water Protection Network, a coalition that works to promote environmentally and economically sound water policies.

One can expect reasoned debate and frank advice on how to coexist with the river in the future. But how many other times have citizens gathered to rue the fact that management of and development along the Missouri River is shortsighted and narrow-minded? We still have not acted on many common-sense recommendations resulting from the 1993 flood.

Here in Missouri we want it all from our namesake river. We want enough water in any season to float the very meager navigation traffic on the river; we want narrow river corridors and high levees so we can build and plant in the floodplain; and we want few restrictions that would keep farm runoff from polluting the river and contributing to the "dead zone" in the gulf.

The record high runoff into the Missouri in 2011 is forcing us to face the fact that we can't have it all. The huge mainstream dams in the upper river didn't prevent flooding, but only reduced its severity. The flood of 1993 already demonstrated that we can have flooding on the lower river based primarily on regional rainfall. Normally two-thirds of the river's total flow comes from tributaries entering below the dams.

We on the lower river can't keep looking for solutions to our problems primarily based on changes in upstream states. We need our own solutions to flooding. So far most of our political and social response to the 2011 flood seems more like an insistence on "don't make me change anything," with misplaced blame, distortion and a refusal to acknowledge limitations and change...

Aerial view of the waterfront section of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, USA, along the River. The picture was taken during the flood of 1993. US Army Corps of Engineers photo

Most Joplin, Missouri residents ignored twister warning

MSNBC: "The vast majority of Joplin residents" did not respond to the first siren warning of the May 22 twister that killed 162 people because of a widespread disregard for tornado sirens, federal officials concluded in a report issued Tuesday. "This was a warned event," Kathryn Sullivan, deputy director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told reporters, noting that several days before forecasters were warning of a strong possibility of twisters.

Officials didn't blame residents, many of whom complained that sirens often go off in Joplin for tests or even just when dark clouds form, and suggested that a "non-routine warning mechanism" be developed to make it clear when a siren should be taken seriously.

Keith Stammer, who heads the local county's emergency management agency, said the department issued two sets of sirens ahead of the tornado and that many people ignored the first siren. Some people thought a second siren was an all-clear signal, which it wasn't, he said. Stammer said he has never issued an "all-clear" during his 18 years in the department. "Honestly it was a bit of a disappointment that there were so many people who didn't move to shelter after the first warning," Stammer said. "The human side is the part that's most frustrating."...

In Joplin, Missouri on June 2, 2011, Chief Yeoman Mike Shea, assigned to the Virginia-class attack submarine USS Missouri (SSN 780), helps a crane operator move a wrecked vehicle during tornado clean-up efforts (U.S. Navy photo by Lt. j.g. Ryan Sullivan/Released)

A compact couldn't be worse than the Corps

An editorial in the Bismarck Tribune (North Dakota): The degree to which the Missouri River has been mismanaged became clear when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced it would only reduce the elevation of Lake Sakakawea behind Garrison Dam to 1,837 feet by March 1, 2012. That elevation, slightly below March of this year, means the odds of flooding again next spring remain strong.

Circumstances on the nearly 2,400-mile river -- saturated banks, levees and flood plains, dams near capacity, continued high releases into the fall, ongoing wet weather -- give the corps little choice. Record snow pack, rain events and corps decisions over the years combined to set up this disaster, and now we are nearly out of options in preparing for 2012.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple wants to dump the corps management of the river and replace it with a compact of Missouri River states. Presently, the corps finds itself bound by a congressional act, restrained by Congress, locked in by a master operating manual, pressured by special interests and second-guessed by everyone. Shifting to a compact would be complicated, but not impossible. Once in place, it could be more responsive to the changes by eliminating one or more layers of absentee (Washington) river management.

"It's hard to imagine that it can be worse than it is today. Any compact would establish clearly the priorities of uses," Dalrymple said this week. He's right on that account...

An aerial view of the Garrison Dam in North Dakota, US Army Corps of Engineers photo

Missouri River flooding hurts barge industry

Anthony Schick in the Missourian: The Missouri River gave the shipping industry too much of what it needed this summer. After a lasting drought in the river basin decimated the corridor's barge industry for the past decade, this summer's flooding has washed away hopes for a bounce-back year. Long-haul shipping on the Missouri River fell from 1.3 million tons in 2000 to 269,000 tons in 2009. Water levels too low for heavy barge traffic drove away most of the existing shipping on the 675-mile stretch from Sioux City, Iowa, to St. Louis.

When the drought ended at the decade's turn and 2010 estimates neared 333,000 tons, the industry grew optimistic of an upward trend. Rising river levels sparked hope for a longer, healthier shipping season. The Missouri Department of Transportation projected increases of 15 percent to 20 percent this year, Freight Development Administrator Ernie Perry said.

That's not going to happen. The U.S. Coast Guard extended a closure of the Missouri River between Gavins Point Dam and Glasgow last week. That stretch of nearly 600 miles is the longest piece of the river ever closed. Some stretches of the river were too high to navigate even before the closure, Army Corps of Engineers Navigation Manager John LaRandeau said.

"You can imagine the frustration of the people who make their living on the river," LaRandeau said. "River shippers eking by, just trying to get through the drought years, then business comes back and they're ready to enjoy the good years, and the river puts a stop on that."...

Coal hauling barges on the Missouri River in January 2011, shot by Paul Sableman, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license

Earthen levees on Missouri River at risk

Josh Funk in STL Today via the AP: Experts say several levees along the Missouri River, especially older ones in rural areas, are at risk of failing this summer as massive amounts of water continue to flow through the river system from upriver reservoirs, but chances of such failures in urban areas remain remote.

So far, most levees have held along the 811 miles the Missouri travels from the last dam at Gavins Point in South Dakota to its confluence with the Mississippi River near St. Louis. But engineers who have studied past floods say the earthen levees in rural areas are at greater risk. "Most of the levees are agricultural levees. They're not engineered. They're just dirt piled up," said David Rogers, an engineering professor at Missouri University of Science and Technology.

A few levees have failed, but most of the flooding thus far has covered more than 560,000 acres of mostly rural land. The water has forced some evacuations, but the extent of the damage may not be clear until it recedes. That's not expected to happen until the fall as the Army Corps of Engineers says it needs to continue releasing substantial amounts of water from upstream reservoirs inundated with heavy spring rains and melt from an above average Rocky Mountain snowpack.

...The corps predicts the Missouri River will remain 5 to 7 feet above flood stage in much of Nebraska and Iowa and may rise as high as 10 feet above flood stage in Missouri until at least mid-August.

The corps predicts that the river will eventually rise high enough to flow over some 18 to 70 levees, mostly in rural areas of southeast Nebraska, southwest Iowa and Missouri. Other levees will become saturated, and water can erode their foundations, seep underneath or find other flaws to exploit....

Water flows from the Missouri River over levee L-550, located north of Highway 136 in Atchison County, Mo., June 19. The local sponsor reported overtopping of the levee to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers the morning of June 19. The levee is in the Federal Program (PL 84-99) and is operated and maintained by a non-federal sponsor. It was constructed by the Corps in the late 1940s. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Carlos J. Lazo)

Widening Missouri River, reducing risk, key to flood control

STL Today (St. Louis): From his fourth-floor cubicle next to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' emergency operations center in downtown St. Louis, engineer Matt Hunn keeps an eye on the Missouri River. Using graphs, maps, phone and email, Mr. Hunn serves as one of the region's chief flood fighters. Lately, he's been busy.

Every day, he and numerous other state and federal officials from several agencies map out a plan to fight what is quickly becoming the historic flood of 2011. Just don't call it the "Great Flood," Mr. Hunn said. "There's nothing great about it."

To engineers like Mr. Hunn, floods provide an important data point. Each one is different from the last, responding to constantly changing variables. Some are out of our control; others are not. After the 1993 flood that wreaked havoc in this region, Mr. Hunn remembered a great hue and cry for better flood-control measures across the Missouri River basin. But the energy dissipated as the water receded. "From my perspective, you've got a two- to four-year window," Mr. Hunn said. "People forget."

That is why now is the time, as the floodwater still is high in the northern basin and is heading our way, to begin a serious discussion about improving the flood-control measures and the overall management of the multi-state Missouri River basin. River historian Robert Kelley Schneiders, author of "Unruly River: Two Centuries of Change along the Missouri," endorses the concept of "democratizing" Missouri River management. "I think the river can be a lot more than it is right now for a lot more people," Mr. Schneiders said.

...How do we get there? Based on our conversations with veterans of river management debates over the past couple of decades, we offer three suggestions as a starting point: Widen the river, reduce risk and put navigation in its proper context....

Eppley Airfield in Omaha on June 16, 2011 during 2011 Missouri River floods. US Army Corps of Engineers

Rampaging Missouri River defies its master

Dave Helling and Scott Canon in the Kansas City Star: ...“When your bathtub is full, you just can’t put any more water in it,” said Dave Becker, operations manager for the Army Corps of Engineers at Gavins Point Dam on the Nebraska-South Dakota border. “Water is going to spill over.”
.
..But how did the bathtub get so full? Why did the six huge Missouri River reservoirs — Gavins Point is the farthest downstream — fill to the brim and force the months-long release of floodwater? The short answer: The corps could have prevented or drastically held down flooding by opening flood gates sooner. The reasons it didn’t — reasons putting government water managers on the spot this summer — rest in a tangle of history, physics, meteorology and politics.

We had ample warning last winter that snow was piling on the Rockies. Consequently, the corps made room in its man-made lakes for the coming runoff. Just not enough. It chose not to make more room, its engineers point out, because it was unaware of the torrents of rain that would deluge the Missouri basin in May. As the river now rises in downtown Kansas City and floods soybean fields and hamlets to the north, the corps insists it couldn’t have predicted those storms.

The agency also says it was simply following orders — from us. Over lifetimes and through our politicians, we’ve said we don’t just want those dams to protect us against cataclysm. We want cheap electricity, and the system gives us plenty of hydro power. The sparsely populated Dakotas want to keep the reservoirs close to full to draw boaters and sports fishermen, and to irrigate the lower reaches of their river valleys Downstream, farming interests want enough water to keep the Missouri River barge industry — a steadily shrinking business — alive. All that means storing water in the reservoirs in the spring, not leaving empty space to protect against flooding...

The Gavins Point Dam releases 150,000 cubic feet per second of water June 14, 2011, a record that more than doubles the previous high release. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Jay Woods). Here's a conundrum. US government photos are in the public domain. Yet the Corps released this through Flickr with a license. Go figure

Blaming our ancestors for the Missouri floods

An editorial in the Des Moines Register: Everyone is looking for a place to lay blame for the flooding caused by unprecedented amounts of water barreling down the Missouri River, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is the favored scapegoat. That is fair only to the extent that the Corps manages water moving through the dams and levees along the 2,300 miles of the Missouri. Blame must also be shared by a host of others who over the past 75 years decided to tame this once meandering river.

Re-engineering the Missouri River represented one of the nation's largest single public works projects. It was initiated during the Great Depression as a massive economic-development program, and to this day it affects the landscape, the environment, wildlife and lives of people in 10 states and beyond.

The project achieved its mission of straightening the river for shipping and navigation, striking a balance between routine floods and droughts, and creating hydroelectric power and recreational opportunities. But all this has come with enormous human and environmental costs, including eliminating wildlife habitat and starving downstream floodplains of nourishing sediment that has had serious consequences as far south as the Gulf of Mexico.

Critics have long argued the man-made changes to the Missouri exacerbate the flood risk, and some go so far as to say they could yet cause a catastrophe if even one of the dams fails, causing a succession of failures in a domino effect that would send several years' worth of snowmelt and rainwater all the way downstream to the Mississippi, wiping out cities, infrastructure and farms.

If that were to happen -- and the experts insist it won't -- it would be the result of decisions made to build this massive water-management system in the first place, not just decisions made by the engineers at the floodgates controls today….

Water flows from the Missouri River over levee L-550, located north of Highway 136 in Atchison County, Missouri, June 19, 2011. It was constructed by the Corps in the late 1940s. (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers photo by Carlos J. Lazo)

Flooding threatens Missouri and Kansas

Zachary Hoffman in Disaster News Network: Nearly 40 counties in Missouri and Kansas are under flash flood warnings due to slow moving thunderstorms that will bring more than five inches of rain to some areas in the next 24 hours, according to the National Weather Service.

In Boone County, Missouri five water rescues have been performed from flooding caused by the three inches of rain that had already fallen before flash flood warnings were issued. “Most of the rescues were performed before dawn,” said Dispatch Supervisor Chuck Mastalski for Boone County Emergency Management. “It was dark and people were taken by surprise.” “There are no injuries to speak of, just a lot of frightened motorists,” said Mastalski.

There has been no reports of home damage due to flooding as of yet, but for Boone County and the rest of the state rain is expected to keep falling. … This system of thunderstorms stretches for nearly 800 miles from Texas to Illinois and will move northeast towards New York, bringing heavy rain over large portions of the country.

…According to some meteorologist what makes this system particularly threatening for flooding is a weather event called training. Training is when a series of storms follow each other in quick succession along a boundary line, which provides no relief from heavy rains for a prolonged period of time….

River breaching a dam in Maryville, Missouri, in 2007, shot by Americasroof , Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License